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News | 2014

One of the biggest nephrology associations worldwide, ERA – EDTA, declares that urinary proteomes can serve as a correlate and predictor of renal function in the general population. View latest press release:

The prevalence of kidney disease is increasing significantly. This is due, on the one hand, to demographic trends – people are becoming older and loss of renal function is a symptom of old age. Yet demographic trends alone do not explain the steep upward trend in chronic kidney disease (CKD). CKD is frequently a direct sequela of hypertension and diabetes – diseases whose incidence in recent years has increased dramatically and whose incidence cannot be estimated in full due to the large number of unreported cases. These diseases result years later in chronic renal failure, especially when they are insufficiently treated or not treated at all. This means that the increase in CKD may be considered the immediate consequence of the growing number of diabetics and hypertension patients. The discomforting aspect here is that we must fear that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

An option for reducing the dialysis population or at least for keeping it stable over the long term is to improve the early detection of chronic kidney disease. “We see an enormous potential in the field of early detection, especially, because early diagnosis of CKD can stop the disease from advancing, or slow its progress at least”, explains Prof. Carmine Zoccali, NDT Editor-in-Chief. “Therefore the paper of Gu et al [1] is of great importance. It shows that urinary proteomes can serve as a correlate and predictor of renal function in the general population. Urinary proteome analysis might be useful for stratifying people at risk of CKD”.

Indeed, the study that will be published in the December issue of NDT has shown that higher biomarker levels correlated with worse renal function: The rise of the biomarkers HF1 and SF predicted lowering of eGFR, the rise of HF2 predicted an increase in serum creatinine. Besides, HF2 and SF were – independent of albuminuria and eGFR – associated with cardiovascular events. “This is an interesting second aspect of the study. The urinary proteome analysis might even help us to stratify renal patients at high risk of developing cardiovascular complications. This might be of importance, because cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in renal patients is unduly high. Patients at risk might be detected and get an intensified therapy to prevent cardiovascular events”.

Medias interest in urinary proteomes is massive, f.e. “Salzburger Nachrichten”, one of the biggest traditional newspapers in Austria with a circulation of 108.040 featured: “Diagnostic patterns show diseases in due time”. View article.